And I had the sweet opportunity to observe him lecture for 3 hours in his MBA brand planning course.

Afterward, my hand ached from note-taking. Check out these pearls of wisdom worth a mental bookmark:

It’s all about return to shareholders. You don’t want to be that cool marketer in all-black clothing that doesn’t understand shareholder value.

Rookie mistake for a brand consultant is to just say “Do X.” That person tops out at VP. Where is the return? You need to be able to allocate capital. [This reminds me of Buffet. All marketing should deconstruct to ROI, allocation of capital, and limited resources.]